


Get Me To The Church On Time

by hollimichele



Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Gen, M/M, everybody loves a wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 05:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1090212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollimichele/pseuds/hollimichele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Well, there were supposed to be flowers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Get Me To The Church On Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Framlingem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Framlingem/gifts).



The Wizard’s Hall of the New York Public Library is not, of course, open to the general public. In order to access it, for one thing, one must be a wizard, or be granted access by one; besides, if everyone could use it the wizards would never get any work done. 

The collection of the Wizard’s Hall is eclectic, to say the least. While the Wizard’s Manual covers a great deal, there are things that are not within its remit, and curious wizards may come to the Hall to learn them. On the shelves that line the Hall may be found books brought in sideways from other dimensions-- books that were never published, here and now-- books written by notable wizards, atlases of no-longer-extant places and bestiaries of creatures never seen in this particular neighborhood of reality. And a great deal more besides.

It’s a beautiful space, the Wizard’s Hall. High-ceilinged, with round multi-paned windows letting in light above the bookshelves; a double row of tables to study at marches down the center. Someone sitting in one of the generously padded chairs, head bent over a book, could, if the fancy struck them, look up at the lavishly muraled ceiling, or the ornate molding around the windows, or the fancifully carved shelf supports. It’s a Gilded Age marvel, is the Wizard’s Hall, and anyone lucky enough to be granted access ought to appreciate it.

On an ordinary day, the Wizard’s Hall is quiet but for the rustle of paper, and there are rarely more than a handful of people present, intent on their books. This, however, was not an ordinary day. 

On this particular day, the double row of tables were gone, replaced by neat ranks of folding chairs. Today there was a low stepped dais at the end of the center aisle, draped with bunting. Today, there were flowers.

Well, there were supposed to be flowers.

“Nita, are you _kidding_ me?” Carmela demanded. She looked harried, to say the least. “The florist was supposed to be here an hour ago! Haven’t you called them yet?”

Nita looked only slightly less harried, but then, she had slightly less to worry about. “Only about six times. They’re not picking up. Look, it’s not that big a deal, I can go outside and have a chat with the garden-- it’s out of season, sure, but I’m pretty sure the rosebushes around the corner are willing to be sweet-talked into blooming.”

Kit, rushing by with a tangled armload of Christmas lights, skidded to a halt. “Are you serious? Neets, that’s gonna screw up the color scheme six ways to Sunday.” Carmela nodded agreement, the two of them sharing a look of exasperation that had grown sadly familiar to Nita over the last couple of months.

“I’m pretty sure you two are the only ones who’re going to care. Considering the number of guests who don’t see color on the same spectrum, or who won’t know the difference between decor and hors d’oeuvres, it’s really fine. And you know Tom and Carl won’t mind.”

“Tom and Carl asked me to plan this, Nita,” Carmela said. “And I want it to be perfect for them. Which means the flowers need to be the ones the florist promised, and not whatever you can convince the nearest shrubbery to cough up!”

“Fine,” Nita said. “I’ll go down there in person and see what the hold-up is. Kit, you want me to help you unpick those lights, first?”

“I got it, Nita,” Kit said. “Decorations are my problem; flowers are yours.” Nita shrugged, and headed out.

Carmela looked sidelong at Nita as she left. “I'm not sure she’s taking this seriously, are you?”

“Not really,” Kit said, shaking his head. “I don’t think she’s even been looking at the stuff I sent her from [Pinterest](http://www.pinterest.com/iblamecarmela/tom-and-carls-wedding/).”

“Ugh, I hope the centerpieces come out okay,” Carmela said.

“I told you about the mix-up there, right?” Kit asked. “Because I ordered those reproduction vintage orreries off one of your shopping channels, and when they got here they turned out to be the wrong solar system! And there wasn’t time to return them, so I think we just have to hope no one notices.”

“Wedding planning is so much harder than it looks,” Carmela said with a sigh. “I’m just glad you’re detail-oriented.”

*****

“You need to have a come-to-Jesus talk with your sister,” Tom told Carl. “And have you seen my tie?”

“That’d probably just encourage her,” Carl said, running a hand through his hair and ruining half an hour’s work in the process. “And I think it’s on the dresser.”

“Fair point,” said Tom, and then “a-ha!” as he located the missing bow tie. “But you’re gonna have to talk her down sometime between now and the ceremony. How’d she even find out Irina was called away, anyway?”

“Who knows? Apparently not just the Powers work in mysterious ways. I’m a little impressed at her tenacity, for that matter. Or maybe her pastor’s just scared of her, and that’s why he was willing to be dragged into the city to conduct the wedding of two complete strangers on no notice.”

“I can buy that, actually,” Tom said into the mirror as he tied his tie. “Anyway, it’ll probably be fine. We’ve got two hours, and Irina said she should be back in plenty of time to officiate.”

“And my sister will have to go home disappointed.” Carl pulled Tom away from the mirror so he could straighten Tom’s tie himself. “There. You look pretty dapper, even if it’s me saying it.”

“Only opinion I care about,” said Tom. “And you don’t look too bad yourself.”

Cal grinned. “I still don’t get why having someone with, as she put it, ‘an ordination from an actual religion that exists on this planet’ lead the ceremony is her sticking point, though.”

“Weddings make people crazy,” Tom said, shrugging.

“You’re telling me,” said Carl.

*****

If Carmela had been harried before, she looked downright frazzled now. She’d changed into her dress for the ceremony-- deep blue, with a knee-length skirt belling out and cap sleeves, and she kept tucking an errant lock of hair back into her updo. The clipboard she carried looked the same, though. “Nita, what _took_ you?” she demanded. “And why do you have a giant bucket of sticks?”

“The florist had a family emergency,” Nita said. She was still in her street clothes, and didn’t look nearly worried enough about being ready for the ceremony, a mere hour away. “They’re refunding our deposit, but no flowers. So I improvised. We’re doing vases full of bare branches and white peonies, and I bought about a hundred little dollar-store succulents to keep with Kit’s color scheme.”

“Wait,” Carmela said. “Have you been following Kit’s Pinterest?”

“Don’t tell him,” Nita said, with a conspiratorial grin. “He doesn’t need the swelled head.”

“Where do you want these, Nita?” asked Dairine, hardly visible behind the snowdrift of white flowers she was carrying. “And you owe me big time for the help, don’t forget.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nita said. “C’mon, let’s go get the tables ready, and then we can get changed.”

As they left, a tall, curly-headed woman in a spangly dress slipped past them in the doorway. Dairine paused, turning to give the woman a long, curious look, but she shook off whatever had caught her interest when Nita called her name. 

“I’m in the right place, aren’t I?” the woman asked Carmela. “I’m conducting the ceremony.”

“I thought Irina was doing that,” Carmela said. She frowned, suspicious. “You’re not Carl’s sister’s pastor, are you? Because I talked to him about that, and he said--”

“No, no, don’t worry,” the woman said. “I used to live with them, is all, and I wouldn’t have missed today for the worlds.”

“Were you invited?” Carmela asked.

“Not as such, but I don’t think they’ll mind. And I brought a gift, look.” She held up a clear clamshell box with two boutonnières inside. They were unfamiliar white flowers-- whiter, in fact than any flowers Carmela could recall having seen before, nearly luminescent, shining a little; Carmela had the fleeting thought that if the lights were turned out the flowers would shine all on their own.

“Where did you get those?” she asked, curious.

“Timeheart,” said the woman.

“Wait, what? Who exactly are you?” Carmela asked.

“Call me Peach,” the woman said.

*****

It was, everyone agreed later, a beautiful wedding.

The ceremony went off without a hitch-- whoever they’d roped in at the last minute (and the grooms had looked awfully surprised to see her) had done a wonderful job, and the vows were so lovely that there was hardly a dry eye in the Hall. The reception, too, was beautiful-- the cake, the food, the decorations, everything done just so, and just right. Carmela looked nearly as happy as Tom and Carl did. No one noticed the orreries were wrong.

"Whew," said Kit, collapsing into a chair at the back of the reception hall. (The Met, like the NYPL, had a lovely space stretched out of a spare bit of spacetime and reserved for wizards' use.) "Carmela, no offense, but if you ever get married I'm not doing anything but dressing nice and bringing a gift."

"Same here, for you," Carmela replied. She looked exhausted. "And a courthouse wedding's looking better all the time, now I know how much work goes into a fancy one."

"Worth it, though," said Nita, on Carmela's other side, watching Tom and Carl sway in circles on the dance floor, their faces even more alight than their boutonnières. From her seat at a nearby table, the Power formerly known as Peach was watching them too, her face a trifle wistful.

"The party wasn't bad," Dairine said, flopping down next to Kit with a huff. "But it's an awful lot of fuss over not all that much. Just saying a couple of lines."

"Oh, I don't know," Nita said. "You could say that about the Oath, too. Sometimes saying a few words matters a lot, if they're the right words."

"In that case, we should have gotten big fancy parties for taking the Oath," Dairine muttered.

"Hey, if you want a party, you can plan it yourself," Kit said. "Right, 'mela?"

She didn't answer. Kit glanced over and saw she had dozed off, sitting up.

"Better leave her be for a bit," he said. Lowering his voice. "Neets, Dairine, want to dance?"

"I'd love to," said Nita, and Dairine grumbled but pushed herself upright and followed.

From their vantage point on the dance floor, Tom and Carl watched this exchange with amusement they hardly bothered to cover up. “We _did_ tell Carmela we’d have been just as happy with the courthouse and a house party,” Tom said.

“But she had so much fun running around, making everything just right,” Carl countered, leaning in a little closer as the music went slow. 

“And it was an awfully nice wedding,” Tom agreed.

“Nicest one I’ve ever been to,” Carl said. They swayed in silence for a little while.

“Hey, Carl?”

“Yeah, Tom?”

“Want to leave the kids to their fun and get out of here?”

“Do I ever,” said Carl, and kissed him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Lan for beta; thanks to Kat for the suggestion that I actually make Kit's Pinterest. All else is entirely my fault.


End file.
